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Kobolds
“Ha? Issa wan’ to be talking with all-watcher? It got not chance, nah. It too smooth and tall. It wan’ to come in bad, ha? Then give Teixar silver what brighter glows than all-watcher’s tongue lashes, yes! We a-follow and a-watch it. Issa not be bringing in troubles or we eat its lungs out!” – Teixar, guardian to the mine of Vyaeriss “Detestable schemers, all of them! The only good that can be done with them is to push them in the direction of the orcs and watch the two bands of savages butcher each other.” – An anonymous merchant of Varpus “There can be no more worthy task in our present age than the salvation of these lost kindred of ours. However, for now, we must love them at arm’s length, for they are possessed of a uniquely vicious instinct.” – Doanturax zve Injeshtarak Sauhurkpaz, an elder of the Nyadegtaan paladins Lifespan One hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty years, but the dragonwrought can live well beyond two hundred. Physical description Kobolds are the smallest of the speaking peoples, rarely standing any taller than two and a half feet tall. They are reptilian in nature, with bony, gaunt limbs, glowering red eyes, and a crocodilian head with razor sharp teeth. Their scales tend to be shades of ochre, and when thoroughly cleaned are glossy enough to faintly reflect sunlight. They have long, whip-like tails, and their digits terminate with sharp claws good to dig into rock—or cut through flesh. Their legs are double-jointed like those of beasts, and they normally go shoeless even in the most rough-hewn rock tunnels of the mines, for their calluses are so thick by nature. The kobolds seem to be a weak race from their lean limbs and small chests, but they are filled with a wiry intensity, and when pushed to violence attack with quick, slashing flurries rather than measured, punishing blows. They do not give birth as do the Nyadegtaan, but lay eggs like dragons, and gestate for only sixty days before they hatch into wyrmlings. They reproduce far more quickly than the mammalian races that rule the world above, and are capable of walking and eating solid food only a few hours after they hatch. They prefer the taste of fresh cooked meat, but they are omnivores with a wider-ranging appetite than any human would dare contemplate: rotting flesh, worms, and the living bark of trees may not be their primary choices for dinner, but they will certainly wolf them down if the occasion calls for it. Like the lizard-races rumoured to reside in the far west, the kobolds are a cold-blooded race, and they consequently have less of a need for food, but a higher need for a warm environment. When constructing a mine, channels of warm air are critical to the comfortable survival of the inhabitants, and often sorcerers will use magic to artificially heat the underground air. At temperatures that most peoples find on the verge of uncomfortably hot, the kobolds thrive, for the heat gives them plentiful energy to hack through dirt and rock to expand their subterranean homes. As they are a people of the underworld, they have adapted to the darkness: from some arcane vagary in their draconic bloodline, they have gained the ability to see in absolute blackness as though light was shining down. The Dragonwrought Indisputably, the most fascinating characteristic of this seemingly barbarous and petty race is that they are, in fact, connected to the most wondrous creatures of all, the dragons. Nobody quite understands just what the connection is, but it is indisputable that the two races are somehow intertwined. This is most evident with the dragonwrought kobolds, those among them who, through some twist of fate and bloodline, are born with the colours of one of the ten draconic peoples, and are possessed by a similar temperament as that colour. That the kobolds have this ancient and exalted link is known only to the kobolds themselves, to the other draconic races, and to the most erudite scholars of draconic lore among the other speaking peoples of Kerlonna. Some dragonwrought even grow so close to the blood that they sprout functional wings like the Ixatsoth, allowing this race of subterranean miners to aspire to the yawning heavens above. Mental description The kobolds are an introverted and hard-pressed people, who have made a practice of survival against even the most oppressive odds. Centuries of struggle against outside attack have made them distrustful and defensive and the relentless contempt with which they are received by most peoples of Kerlonna has made them largely indifferent to the plight of others. However, at the same time, they feel no inferiority, for they are always aware that they are of purer lineage than any snide “smooth-skins” could ever hope to aspire to. Few are the kobolds who are benevolent and magnanimous to those of alien race, for they feel that the only beings worthy of their respect are those of the dragon’s blood. For each other, however, the kobolds are so altruistic as to go beyond the easy comprehension of other peoples. They dwell communally; they raise children communally; they lack private property; and they lack any sense of sexual monogamy. It is natural for them to sacrifice their personal interests in the favour of the interests of the group, and they do not put any unusual effort into this, for it is part of their inborn instincts. When the mine is under threat, they come in a shrieking flood, prepared to risk everything in order to protect their wyrmlings and their tunnels. The kobolds are an almost fearless people, and this is part of what makes them so troubling to the other races. Even in the face of charging orcs, the kobolds will retreat to their holes and cackle with glee as the orcs stumble into the lethal traps that the kobolds had set long before. They are always ready to repay their debts, and in a world where they are far more often mistreated than helped, this has given them a peculiar vindictiveness that is both focused and frequently acted upon. They do not blindly lash out in vengeance, but wait for the moment when they may best exact it, in excruciating detail. However, most slights go entirely unnoticed by them. Indeed, to a certain extent, they take great advantage of the disdain with which they are treated by the other races, for it means that little note is taken of them, and they can operate without the heedful attention of the other peoples tracking them. A secretiveness and shyness to their nature compounds this, meaning that in some places, kobold infestations go entirely ignored right up until an attack is launched against a saighe and a thousand gnomes are slaughtered. The kobolds are so collectivistic in their thinking and in their deeds that individualists in their society are usually exiles, outcasts, and dissidents. To be alone, to a kobold, is something that they regard with a faint sense of horror, as being some sort of aberration that leads to insanity and death. Indeed, for this beleaguered race, to be outside of the intimacy and security of the mine can sometimes be a death sentence, particularly if the gnomes are encountered. However, at the same time, there are always those few who desire to breathe morning air, and live unimpeded by the vast web of kobold custom and tradition. For, indeed, the kobolds are a people of tradition. Their whole society is structured around ancient protocols of behaviour, stories of bygone ages, and grudges that have outlived nations. They are supremely adaptable and are certainly no conservatives when it comes to new and innovating technologies and magic. However, their society is so rigorously bound by the scruples of their elders that there is no real possibility for them to adopt a worldview other than that which they are taught, unless they rebel and abandon the mine of their birth. The words of the ancients sing louder to them than do any new appeals from the young. The kobolds are a humourless race. While they take great pleasure in work and in the glorification of their draconic bloodline, they have no patience for japes, for mockery, or for defiant satire. Relations For most, the kobolds are cruel and disconcertingly clever vermin. They are hateful and even savagely dangerous, but they are not seen with the terror that the orcs receive. Rather, they are held in contempt, for they scurry through darkness and dirt without any heed for the niceties of the sunlit civilizations, and they often spark open conflict with the other races for resources of food and water. Occasionally, they serve as allies of expediency against the orcs, whom the kobolds hate just as vociferously as the other speaking peoples do. However, for the most part, humans treat the kobolds as simply a race of rats, one that is not worthy of the concerted effort it would take to drive them back, but which must occasionally be culled for the good of everyone else. Halflings give kobolds a wide berth, for the kobolds see the halflings as being suspiciously similar to gnomes and often attack them for this reason. The half-orcs and half-elves are repelled by the kobolds, but also somewhat fascinated by them: the kobolds do not really care about the mixed parentage of these peoples, and treat them neither better nor worse than they do others, which is a treatment that the half-blood races almost never receive. Elves, with their long perspective, are much more concerned about the kobolds than are the humans, for the rapid expansion of the Ithaiyej across southwest Kerlonna has only taken two centuries, and they are far more organised and insidious than were the orcs at the height of their power. The fact that the kobolds have not made any open attack against civilizations of Kerlonna yet proves nothing: they could easily be hiding some dark design meant to establish their race in the power that it so desires. Uniquely, the krolgashi treat the kobolds with respect, remembering them as a hard-working and simple people from the days when they dwelled at the southern roots of the Great Western Dakylsthas. As such, the kobolds are trustful of the mountain-folk to a small degree, and do not attempt to harm them, but instead often engage in trade with them. The Slayers of Gnomes For the gnomes, the kobolds only feel a passionate and slightly insane loathing that stems from their racial history. For eons, the kobolds dug their mines and labyrinths under the rocky heights of the deep deserts of the White Thirst, far beyond the knowledge of the Taur’Sutij. The pressures of the deserts slowed their population growth, and they spread only on a pace of multiple generations, creeping through the tunnels that they excavated. However, shortly before the first orcs landed in Hentölla, there was an abrupt shift of affairs when the gnomish nomads of the White Thirst, who are rather more brutal than their Kerlonnic cousins are, decided that the kobold population had reached an intolerable size. A hideous genocide followed, as the gnomish wizards collapsed tunnels upon thousands of screaming wyrmlings and blasted the dragonwrought from the sky, while below, the camel-mounted desert warriors destroyed whole generations of kobold soldiers under the burning sun. Eventually, the surviving kobolds realised that they could not withstand the terror of the gnomish onslaught. In a feat of colossal magic, the remaining sorcerers cast a massive teleportation spell that hurled their people hundreds of kilometres to the northeast, landing them just beyond the borders of the Marnic Federation. Since that time, an absolute detestation of the gnomish people has etched itself into the hearts of the kobolds, and any self-respecting kobold will go a mile out of his way to cut a gnome’s throat. Because of the alliance between the gnomes and the dwarves, this has drawn the kobold mines into a growing race war against the saighes of the southwest, and although it is currently an affair confined to only a few regions, the situation is slowly worsening. However, the kobolds are not so stupid as to risk the survival of their race for short-term vengeance against the gnomes. They will wait until they are strong enough to destroy the hated gnomes in one ruinous strike, and it will be a day of triumph for all Ithaiyej. Devotees of the Dragon The only beings for which the kobolds feel true respect are the draconic races. The Nyadegtaan are a conundrum for them, because they were fathered by a silver dragon who broke the laws of his own people to pursue a grand apocalyptic vision that never truly succeeded. However, at the same time, the Nyadegtaan are fascinating and supremely enviable to the kobolds: a draconic people who dwell free and strong, not hated or oppressed by any, in the pursuit of grand ideals. The kobolds usually feel a mixture of deference and befuddlement towards the Nyadegtaan, for they do not quite comprehend just why the Nyadegtaan are so insistently opposed to the chromatic dragons, but they also recognise that the children of Nyadeg are even closer to the blood of the dragon than are they. For true dragons, the kobolds feel nothing less than worshipful awe. To even be touched by a dragon’s distant shadow will cause a kobold to burst into tears of joy: to stand before one in the flesh renders their mouths dry with the thirst to serve. Whether it is metallic or chromatic, they invariably become adoring and child-like before the mighty creature, and ask nothing but that it considers them its unflinching servants. It is the deepest aspiration of the kobolds that one day they be seen by the true dragons as a worthy people, and that they be sworn to the dragons in perpetuity as a race of vassals. It is the ultimate fulfilment of the collectivist mind of the Ithaiyej: the deliverance and perfection of their race, as they see it, is to, one day, be in the thrall of another. Social structure Unlike the human and dwarven races, the kobolds do not have a system of ennobled bloodlines, but they do have a system of occupations within the mine. Generally, these are four: labourer; warrior; sorcerer; and all-watcher. These occupations are all chosen not by the individual but by the consensus of the community during childhood: those with aggressive streaks are trained as warriors, those with an especially strong draconic inner fire are groomed by the sorcerers, and every generation, the most charismatic and forceful of the wyrmlings is named next in succession for position of all-watcher. Labourers fill out the various roles of artisans, miners, hunting, and farmers. Unlike among most human societies, labourers are in no way seen as inferiors, and indeed, there is little social stratification among the kobolds. There is a power structure, but this is not seen as connected to the “worth” of the individual. A sorcerer weaves magic because he must, not because he is somehow superior to a miner. As such, there is remarkably little social tension within the kobold mines compared to other societies, and they regard the internal strife so often manifested among human societies as a basic sign that solely the dragon-blooded are worthy in this world. Labourers Most kobolds are labourers, and this role covers everything from toiling in the caverns to stalking rabbits in the world above. Labourers tend to specialise, but never to the same extent as is seen in human societies: they are versatile, usually honing two important professions at once rather than just one. In the case of an attack upon the mine itself, labourers are also trained to suddenly become ferocious soldiers in defence of their home caves, and if all else fails, they can use their teeth and claws. Labour is not seen as menial among the kobolds, but a delight, and indeed, sometimes in their free time the sorcerers join their brethren in chopping through the rocks, for they rejoice in such toil as joyous and worthy work, and essential to good health. Warriors Warriors are the guards and forward defence of the mine. They roam beyond the mine in the world above and through natural passageways, scouting out new locations that could become future settlements, and keeping watch over the entrances of saighes to see if any threat will arise from their gnomish foes. The training of kobold warriors is an exhausting and deadly affair, for they tolerate no weakness, but test the novices to the edge of their strength to harden and prepare them for the struggle that is the kobold world. In war, the kobolds are experts in ambush and lightning raids, sowing chaos among their enemies and slaying as many as they can before their larger foes concert their efforts. In direct confrontation, the kobolds always lose, but in skirmish and raid, they are champions. They take a bloodthirsty delight in making war against gnomes especially, and see the slaying of such as being a quasi-religious duty. Sorcerers The sorcerers fill the role of lore-keepers and priests, for it is sorcerers who have unleashed the draconic fire that kobolds treat with reverence. Their blood swimming with arcane energy, they are the most tempestuous of their race, yet at the same time, they are a cornerstone of its society, and as such have a curious dichotomy of spirit between exhilarating energy and strict codes of conduct. Like the Nyadegtaan, they train in sorcerous lineages, which specialise in various forms of sorcery and allow them to focus on what is most suited to their temperament. The magic of the kobolds, appropriately, tends to have a more overtly militaristic focus to it than that of the Nyadegtaan: their sorcerers train especially in spells of warding for the mine and spells of destruction to be used against any attackers. However, the sorcerers are not seen as a separate society in themselves as they are with the Nyadegtaan and with the wizards of the non-draconic races, but instead as an occupation stemming from a particular gift. This unique situation means that the kobold sorcerers are really more comfortable among their own people than are any other mages to be found in the world: they are as much a part of everyday life as is the farmer or the smith. The All-Watcher The all-watcher is something between a taskmaster and a grandparent figure. It is their solemn duty to rule the labourers, command the warriors, and teach the sorcerers, and indeed the all-watcher develops the skills of all three groups. The all-watcher is not an inherited title, but is instead decided through a rather democratic procedure by the previous all-watcher and the elders of the labourers, warriors, and sorcerers. All-watchers are not seen as the rulers of the mine, precisely, but as guides and parental figures whose decisions are for the best, but are not exactly beyond reproach. There is a certain flexibility within kobold politics that outsider humans rarely can get a grasp of, but which is quite sensible and understandable to the psyche of an elf or a halfling. Culture Naturally, most peoples think that the kobolds are unlettered savages barely capable of cleaning up their own waste, much less creating art and philosophy. This prejudiced perspective likely has a great deal to do with the unfortunate circumstances in which the kobolds first arrived in Kerlonna, as half-starved refugees and genocide survivors. At this time, the Ithaiyej certainly had no time or energy to devote to higher endeavours, and so the first contact that the peoples of Kerlonna experienced with these newcomers created an impression that they were mere barbarians with no intellectual or creative faculties to speak of. In this, however, the outsiders were wrong. The kobolds have a most sophisticated tradition of the arts and of an oral tradition that contains works of philosophy as sophisticated as any that came from the mouth of Xarimates and his disciples. However, due to the deeply introverted character of kobold society, outsiders almost never see the full breadth of kobold art and thought. Deep within their mines, the kobolds adorn their walls with dazzling statuary and carvings that depict their racial history, back to the enigmatic birth of their race and forward to this present age. The sophistication of this art is mainly abstract, but when depicting dragons, the kobolds become obsessive realists, rendering in almost perfect detail the grace and glory of the draconic races. These works of art are their holy relics, which they defend with only slightly less vigour than their wyrmlings. These central chambers are called “the Wombs,” for it is within them that the highest kobold rituals take place, and they are where kobold novices are reborn as sorcerers and disciples of the dragon-blood. The kobolds are an illiterate people, for they feel that the Draconic language which they speak is too pure to be committed to base rock or paper. As a result they instead commit all of their works of thought and history to oral tradition. Only a few outsiders, and even fewer non-draconic outsiders, have ever even heard lines from this oral tradition. It is among the most sophisticated and ancient bodies of thought in the world, and unlike the tangible art of the old days, it was not destroyed when the gnomes began their genocide against the kobolds, and has survived in an unbroken continuity since the birth of kobold history. It is just as hidden as the oral tradition of the orcs, and is far more fascinating to scholars who are aware of its existence, for kobolds are rather more intelligent and thus artistic than orcs. Despite the grubby appearance of the kobold race, they are in fact a fabulously wealthy race in mineral and metallic treasures. In the deep stores of their mines, solid gold statues of dragons tower, expertly cut gemstones lie in heaps, and stonework of the highest quality crowds about. They regard the creation of stores of treasure as essential to their eventual racial goal of winning the respect of the true dragons, giving offerings of splendid treasures to the draconic hoards. Until the time when the true dragons deign to speak to them, however, the kobolds keep their treasures safely stored, far from the knowledge of any but themselves. As for kobold music, it is an affair of polyphonic singing that is quite alien to human sensibilities, and is only rarely heard by outsiders. The kobolds generally reserve the ritual of music for their holy rites within the Wombs. Location The land in which the kobolds originated is a mystery. In the times of the Marnic Federation, they had become entrenched in the White Thirst: however, it is rumoured that these kobolds wandered from the chromatic dragon homeland of Cyrutaj, and that, somewhere in the Far Occident, there is another race of kobolds that are connected to the metallic dragon homeland of Aujiregul. When they dwelt in the White Thirst, the kobolds were inhabitants of the distant mesas and canyons far beyond the knowledge of men. After their exile to Kerlonna, they found that the pressures of the environment were far less, and that there was plentiful space due to the catastrophic population loss caused by the orcs. In the decades that followed the expulsion of the orcs from most of Idroslekh and southern Kerlonna, the kobolds began to spread north and east, until by the modern era they have become evenly dispersed from northern Idroslekh all the way to Ishtabas in the east of Ishkula. For their mines, they generally choose areas far from dense human habitation and from saighes, burrowing down through solid rock to establish new settlements. However, there is one remarkable mine that is an exception to this rule of isolation: underneath the city of Varpus, a mine called Ukershivaz has been established beneath the sewers, down into the depths of the earth. The kobolds agreed to settle here because they were promised protection from human, gnomish, and orcish attack by the authorities of Varpus, in exchange for the provision of kobold warriors and sorcerers to defend the city. The kobolds of Ukershivaz are pleased with this state of affairs: the brutal authoritarianism of Varpus is quite sensible to them. Religion “''We are the dragon, and for the dragon we live. Long live the dragon''.” Yet the kobolds do not actually directly worship dragons, as human dragon-cults do and Cagas Guapran once did. Rather, the kobolds see all dragons as manifestations of a higher and perfect intelligence that is true divinity. Due to the disunited state of the chromatic and metallic dragons, it does not seem possible to the kobolds that the true dragons, as majestic and awesome as they are, can be called “gods.” Instead, the kobolds worship a being they call the All-Wyrm. In their beliefs, the souls of true dragons are rejoined with the essence of the All-Wyrm, which is the cosmic creator (as a metallic) and destroyer (as a chromatic), and the Supreme Being that interpenetrates all of reality as pure consciousness. The religions of humanity the kobolds see as a pale approximation of the monistic splendour of the All-Wyrm. As the kobolds believe, the draconic races directly partake of the All-Wyrm’s essence in themselves, and are thus aspects of a divinity, although often they are entirely ignorant of this. However, the non-draconic races, while gifted with souls, are unable to spiritually join with the All-Wyrm, and at the end of this cosmos, all but the draconic races will be spiritually destroyed as the cosmos is absorbed back into the essence of the All-Wyrm. The subtle complexities of this mystical understanding of the world go far beyond what this document can provide, involving secret transmissions of esoteric knowledge among the kobold sorcerers and extremely ancient rituals that seem to approximate the very origins of sorcerous magic. It is eerie to observe how the kobolds partake in magical rituals that invoke the All-Wyrm that are in fact quite similar to the manner in which the Nyadegtaan call down the spirit of Neayradguuliozhast. Religious ritual among the kobolds of a given mine are overseen and conducted by the sorcerers and the all-watcher. Indeed, it seems that within the inner circles of the kobolds, there is a mystical correspondence between the position of the all-watcher and that of the All-Wyrm, but outsiders know nothing more of that. The most frequent rituals of the kobolds involve the creation of treasures and artwork while invoking the draconic spirit. In truth, the reason for the kobolds’ desire to make themselves the servants of true dragons stems from a profoundly religious impulse. They believe that when the three draconic races are at last united, then the spirit of the All-Wyrm will be embodied on this very earth, creating a spiritual state of bliss that will bring an end to the current cosmos and bring all beings back to their original source. This apocalyptic belief is one of their deepest secrets: no outsiders have ever learned of it, not even the true dragons. Language The kobolds speak the Draconic language, naturally, but not the High Draconic tongue, with its mercurial grammar and immense subtlety of meaning. Their dialect of the Draconic is direct and plainspoken, as befits the kobold culture of work, and is mutually intelligible with the Draconic that is spoken in Ezluthai and among human scholars. The kobolds feel that the accent of the Nyadegtaan, however, is too “soft and delicate,” and that the accents of non-draconic peoples attempting to learn the tongue are odious and foolish sounding. The kobolds eagerly learn the languages of the outsiders, to prevent the outsiders from trying to learn their language, and thereby debase it. However, the kobolds learn very little Gnomish, except to cry out invectives of racial hatred. As mentioned above, the kobolds are an illiterate people. Classes The fighting style of the barbarian, while useful, does not intrinsically appeal to the kobolds, who believe in a firm discipline and tribal loyalty. To lose one’s sanity in a haze of fighting fury puts the lives of one’s comrades in jeopardy, which the kobolds find unconscionable. Bards, as musical arcanists, are unusual among the kobolds, but not unheard of: they are seen as “half-sorcerers” who harness the draconic fire to instead rouse their fellows through the power of music. They receive great respect on the field of battle, where their music inspires the warriors to prosecute their enemies with the fullness of their ability. Clerics are rare and highly favoured, being illuminated by some stranger magic that is not at all like the draconic flame. Clerics invoke the All-Wyrm as their deity rather than true dragons, due to the dragons being rather discomfited by the idea of being treated as earthly deities. Druids are very rare among the kobolds, and they do not quite understand one another: certainly, the earth deserves respect, but why should one worship it as something even mightier and more absolute than the All-Wyrm? Most kobolds treat the druids with wariness, and see them as being “tainted” by the alien races. Most kobold warriors are fighters, and they are experts in the ambush and the raid. They don light armour and fight with long spears specially designed to attack upwards at the upper body of the taller races. The kobolds have no tradition of paladins, and they see the merciful, benevolent nature of that calling to be dangerous naïveté that can lead down a terrible path to destruction. They prefer their distrust and old prejudices. Rangers are unusual hunter-labourers or warriors who have become experts in tracking enemies in the world above, particularly a fleeing group of gnomes that are out of their element beyond the saighe. Rogues are those among the kobolds that best exploit the lack of notice that is given towards them, creeping through the shadows, striking hard and fast, and melting back into the darkness as soon as they emerged. Frequently, their targets are gnomes beyond the saighes. The path of the sorcerer is the most ancient in kobold society, and all kobolds know that the common power of the dragon glows deep within them, and that all can develop it if they are so chosen. The sorcerers are seen as heroes and pillars of the kobold society, and are expected to meet such expectations. The kobolds have had little contact with the lore of the Outer Realms, and as such, the warlocks are not well known to them. However, those kobolds that pursue the path of the warlock are seen as threats to the kobold society due to their loyalty to demons rather than dragons, and are treated accordingly. Warlords lead the warriors into glorious combat, greeting the gnomish enemy with howls of execration and exalting the race even unto death.